Cornell Meat Price & Yield Calculator

Welcome!

Welcome to the Cornell Meat Price and Yield Calculator. This tool helps you set prices for each marketing channel in which you sell, to ensure you reach your PROFIT goals. To use the tool you will need to prepare two things in advance:

1) Choose one typical, representative animal from your herd and track the HCW, fees paid for processing, and WEIGH ALL THE CUTS received back from that animal.

You will also need to know a base price for your animal. This is a price per pound hanging weight ($/lb. HCW) that your PRODUCTION operation needs to receive in order to be profitable and continue farming. Think of your farm as running multiple businesses. Each business sells to the next, and each business has other market options. To justify each business, you need to set pricing in order to keep each step profitable.

We can provide some help with the numbers, but the best results will come from your own numbers. If you haven’t weighed all the meat back from an animal, wait until you do, and please return to the site.

Each arrow on the diagram represents an opportunity for your farm to sell to some other buyer, be it a regional brand, auction, or another farm. If you choose to continue through the process, you should determine that base price. The price we need to start is where the production business sells to the marketing business.

Trucking and Delivery

Enter a trucking cost:

$ / head

You drive your livestock TO the processor, this cost should reflect your costs for mileage and the value of your time, but divide to reflect the cost for 1 HEAD only. You can use the Trucking Cost Helper to help calculate.

Enter a delivery cost:

$ / head

You drive to the processor to PICK UP the meat. Do you offer delivery to your customer? Consider your costs for mileage and the value of your time, but divide to reflect the cost for 1 HEAD only.

Processing Costs

This weight should represent 1 typical, representative animal from your herd. It should be the one from which you weigh all the cuts and reflected on your invoice.

Enter the "kill fee" or slaughter cost:

$ / head

Enter the "cut & wrap" processing rate:

$ / lb. HCW

Do you have value-added products such as sausage, hot dogs, patties, smoking etc.?

NoYes

Enter the costs of value-added processing: (These additional processing fees for products such as sausage, hot dogs, patties and smoking should be listed on your bill from the processor. You'll enter the number of pounds processed in a later step.)

Consider the time you spend marketing one head in this channel. Figure the cost of your marketing labor. Then, add a profit above processing and marketing cost which is the profit to your marketing operation.

Enter labor cost and desired profit as a percent of total costs so far or labor cost and desired profit per head:

Conclusion

How much would you like to sell the whole live animal for if someone were to back a trailer up to the farm and buy it?

What is the anticipated HCW or average HCW you see for your animals?

Base price per pound: $

Beef

Open the USDA report for a base price.Scroll down to the “DRESSED DELIVERED BASIS – Beef Breeds” section, look at the “Steers” and “65-80% Choice” line and look over at the WTD AVG. PRICE or the high end of the range. Remember to move the decimal two places to the left, so “184” equals $1.84/lb. HCW, for example.

Pork

Open the USDA report for a base price:
Scroll down to the “Negotiated Purchase” section and look at the “Base Price Rng (range) or WTD AVG. Remember to move the decimal two places to the left, so “72” equals $0.72/lb. HCW, for example.

Sheep

Open the USDA report.
Scroll to the “formula purchases” section, carcass basis, choose the correct HCW range for your farm and then take a price. Remember to move the decimal as instructed above.

Price premium: A premium added to the base price for products with distinctly different qualities. Examples of premiums are below.

How many head did you truck to the processor?pick up from the processor and deliver to customers?

What was your total cost? (fuel, etc.)

$

How many hours did you spend?

What is a good hourly rate for your time?

$

Your cost for truckingdelivering 1 head: $

How many head did you truck to the processor?pick up from the processor and deliver to customers?

What was your total cost? (fuel, etc.)

$

How many hours did you spend?

What is a good hourly rate for your time?

$

Your cost for truckingdelivering 1 head: $

Mark-up is your profit per animal plus your pay for marketing efforts. This includes time spent at farmers’ markets, sales calls to buyers, or talking to freezer trade customers. It can be calculated as a % of total costs so far or as a flat $/head. Note: Retail stores tend to mark-up meat by 35-40%. Time-intensive channels, like farmers’ markets, should have a high mark-up while channels that don’t take much time, such as freezer trade, can have a smaller mark-up.